Questions on Wireless N
 

My older router (Linksys SRX) had served me well. The ethernet ports were only 100 Mbps, but that's lots faster than the stuff coming down the wire. The throughput on the wireless-G connection averaged around 500 - 600 Kbytes/sec but I could live with that.

Anyhow, the wireless connection took a dump - most of the time there was almost no wireless signal. Power off/power on would restore it, but I found I had to do it several times a day. So ...

Found another one (Netgear N150) laying around, which supposedly would provide wireless-N connectivity. All my wireless cards are Dells, and they are described as "dual band". I know that when I detect my neighbor's network, it lists it as G and N. So, I installed this one, and sure enough, it shows up as G and N.

I was downloading some updates for Win 7 and I noticed that the wireless throughput had gone up to match my wired speeds (2+ Mbytes/sec), so at least that aspect of the thing is making me happy.

But do I really have wireless-N? I watch the Task Manager graphs and it lists it as 54 mbps. If it were really -N, wouldn't it show up as 108 or something? I can't connect to my neighbor's network, but the wireless driver shows it as 108.

1. Just because the card is 'dual band', does that mean it's necessarily wireless-N?

2. Is there any way to positively identify a channel as -N?

3. Should I be doing something to enable simultaneous throughput on both bands, or am I mis-understanding how the whole thing works?

Not a big deal, but I'd hate to be leaving unused bandwidth on the table if I can get at it.

Answering my own question - no, dual-band does not imply -N. It just means it can work on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, and -G uses both.

So still ... would my wireless card say "N" on it if it were capable of that, otherwise assume it's "G"?

And ... further research shows that I probably do not have wireless N in my laptop. I would need a replacement card.

So - back to the drawing board. At least I'm getting better throughput, at least as fast as the hard-wired connection when I'm connected to the router.

I tried connecting to my server by copying over a large file using wireless, and I was getting about 3 MBytes/sec, so I guess I'm pushing G to it's practical max (which I assume is about half its theoretical max).

Fine for now. I'll look into upgrading as time goes by and I decide it worth it.

Nope. 802.11a also used 5GHz with a top speed of 54 Mbps. 802.11b and 802.11g both were 2.4GHz only, g being faster.
No. A 802.11a can use any channel 802.11n can. The usable frequencies are set out by regulators and standard makers try to do their best within that frame, isn't likely that the 802.11a standard guys left a few channels lyin' round.
You misunderstand. Dual band means connecting devices can pick between 2.4GHz and 5GHz channels. But one wireless device will use one channel, no matter what. Bonding channels is not out of question, in fact the Super G technology did this, it bonded two standard 802.11g 54mbit/s channels for a 108 mbit/s theoretical maximum. Beyond that, however, you need two wifi cards and some amount of elbow grease to implement channel bonding (no, 40MHz channels are not using bonding, thanks for asking, that's just a wider channel used by 802.11n and no, it doesn't always mean more speed, it's a complicated topi). If you do have two wifi cards in your computer, put Linux on it, flash OpenWRT on the router, sharpen your Google skills and go to town :). I would not even bother trying, to be honest ( I probably could do it but when I started using Linux neither 802.11 nor Fast Ethernet existed. Now get off my lawn. :P )

What chx1975 said. :)

Also if an N network is misconfigured it will limit itself to 54 Mbps. To ensure that doesn't happen, be sure to use WPA2-AES encryption.

What?? Encryption has nothing to do with speeds! That's a fundamental misunderstanding of how this all works.

Dave's right. When WPA (not WPA2) is enabled on many current SOHO routers, the router will ensure compatibility with older devices by reducing the top connection speed. Google it if you don't believe it.

Whew! For a while there I thought I would just be talkin' with myself. :)

And, yeah - I did some homework while I was waiting and I have a better picture of it now.

Thanks, guys.

Yes the 802.11n protocol limits link rates to 54Mbps when WEP or WPA are configured.

And when you see 54Mbps or 108Mbps or whatever, that is just the link rate. That is not the actual throughput. And of course you can have a 1Gbps WiFi connection but if your connection to your Internet provider is limited to 5 or 10Mbps, then you don't get benefits from 802.11n in most cases. The major case where 11n helps is if you are in a room with a lot of metallic surfaces that reflect the WiFi signal. That's a bad thing with 11A or 11G, but its a good thing with 11n and MIMO technology.

It's not just when WEP or WPA are used. 802.11n will also limit speeds if you use TKIP instead of AES.

Based on the specs it looks Draft-N tech wise to me. This is an older router model. You need true 5Ghz to be 'N'. And you would know if your devices were going to use it in two ways, 1) The router has an SSID for G and another one for N. Any device that supports N is going to show both wireless network SSIDs. I can tell you for sure that any iPhone IOS type device is not going to show, or connect to an 'N' connection that is 2.4Ghz as N.

-Patrick

Huh? That's not true at all. 11n can run on 2.4ghz or 5ghz. Technically it could run on any frequency, but those are the government approved WiFi frequencies.

Also not true. There is only a single SSID. An AP can step back to 11G, but it doesn't need to have two SSID's for that.

Also not true. Newer IPhones can connect just fine to a 2.4Ghz 11n AP. I have an iPhone 5s that does this every day.

WiFi cards for laptops are inexpensive on ebay, are typically easy to (physically) replace, and I've been riding the curve from B to A to G to N and now to AC where I'm getting 20MB/s :D

I don't remember if Dell whitelists WiFi cards in their BIOS like Lenovo since that requires you to use a modded BIOS that does not whitelist and that can be a daunting endeavor.